ADDED: The quote in the headline is from the NYT, and the line below that is Instapundit. And now, let's think about sarcasm — who uses it and who gets credit for it and from whom. Let's remember that just a few weeks ago Donald Trump not only used sarcasm, he got treated as if he'd just said something incorrect, and then when he was criticized for that, he came out and explained it, saying it was "sarcasm," and even after that his critics couldn't accept it. So it's very funny to see Bill Clinton's speech puffed and promoted by the NYT calling it sarcasm.

To refresh your recollection: Trump had called Hillary and Obama the "founders" of ISIS. When some people purported to think he was just wrong, he tweeted: "Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) 'the founder' of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?" And his critics acted like they couldn't understand the explanation. For example, Josh Marshall said: "This is not the first time Trump backers have tried to write off one of the candidate's inflammatory comments as a joke."

Meanwhile, Hillary has tossed me in the basket filled with deplorable people.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. --Hillary Clinton 9/9/2016

What the NYT and Media have to face is the slow exposure of an Arkansas sex pervert who got his start as the hand picked disciple of the biggest Jim Crow Racist in Southern History. A man who has always played a race card, whether the White Race Card or the Black Race Card, as the situation demands.

If we elect the Clintons that is what we will get: Bill Clinton and what remains of Hillary's waking brain after she has been used up by Bill over a lifetime of criminal politics.

Plus, Bill's timely death would mean days and days of nonstop media coverage of the Golden Era of the '90's - Bill playing the sax, booming economy and all that. Lots of pictures of Hillary from 25 years ago instead of the bloated, coughing monstrosity she is now. Want that Clinton economy back, America? Good times will return with Hill. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Funeral at the National Cathedral with Obama delivering a passionate eulogy about his saintly predecessor - you know, the guy who thought Barry should be serving the Clintons coffee.

Bill's death would have only upsides as far as the Dems go. There's all this talk about a doctor with the Epi-pen following Hill around. Maybe there's a guy with a syringe following Bill around too, just waiting for the opportune moment.

"Former President William Clinton collapsed suddenly while delivering a campaign speech for his wife at...."

Frederson doesn't know what sarcasm is, unless his 9:06 AM post is so intended. Sarcasm is a use of irony. Trump sarcastically labelled Obama and HRC as founders of ISIS, which points to the irony that in trying to ignite an "Arab Spring" in Syria, the Obama foreign policy created the situation which gave rise to ISIS.

Islamaphobic? That means afraid of Muslims, right? Damned right I'm afraid of a religion whose followers slowly cut the heads off unbelievers! Christians don't do that. Jews don't do that. Buddhists don't do that. Not Hindus. Just Muslims. I don't care that not all of them do it -- the ones that don't need to square around the ones that do. Not MY problem to figure out which is which, bro.

Quaestor said...Hillary says a quarter of the population are "irredeemable" and "not American". Is that sarcasm, or a plan for Konzentrationslagers?"

Now, now, none of that Nazi talk! They'll be happy, fun camps!

"In a paid speech before the New Jersey chapter of the American Camp Association, former Secretary of State Hillary Cinton told the audience that America really needed to implement camps that adults could attend.

As I have gotten older, I have decided we really need camps for adults,” she said to laughter. “And we need the kind of camps you all run.”

"let's think about sarcasm — who uses it and who gets credit for it and from whom" You mean, figuring out the utterly predictable, irony-crushing, who-whom rhetorical manipulation requires actual "thinking"?

The cracks about "Let's make America great again!" and "those coal folks in West Virginia" and their ungratefulness do smack of something, and it makes me uncomfortable even coming from Bill Clinton for whom I do not have high expectations.

The war in Iraq began with a response to the invasion of Kuwait. It was sustained under Clinton. It was concluded with Bush. It progressed under Obama's decision to withdraw honest brokers from a reformed authoritarian state and the Libya-ISIS Affair. Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, were first-order anthropogenic causes of the Islamic State, the local refugee crises, and subsequent global humanitarian disasters. Their choice to visit social justice on a reformed dictator (and American ambassador) through sodomy and abortion were triggers of progressive wars. Their impulsive regime changes from Cairo to Kiev, and armed belligerence there and everywhere, may well reset the cold war with Russia, China, etc. and others who observe the victims of their social justice adventurism.

I'm resisting the anticipation of Clinton's defeat and finally, at long last, passing the whole noxious clan out of the national gut. For one thing, I recognize that the passage is largely illusory. The nation has ingested a large quantity of corruption and the Clintons are just the ones at the end of the descending colon at the moment. Also, I've been here many times before - anticipating the rejection of one or another excrescence if favor of another not obviously less vile. It's easy to exaggerate the difference between them and magnify the relief or disappointment at the changeover as a result. If she loses I'm taking a day off work just to enjoy it nonetheless. Even Obama's defeat would not surpass it.

Speaking of the NYT: I don't read it but, according to this article, the NYT, after blasting Gary Johnson for asking 'What's Aleppo?' misidentified Aleppo as the capital of ISIS [is is Raqqa] and then as the capital of SYRIA! [Damascus is, of course, the capital]. Can you verify this?

Trump said that Hillary was a bigot and people were shocked at Trump. Now the evidence comes in from Hillary's own mouth.

Wow, look. A whole blog full of sarcasm experts

If you don't like the discussion of ideas and the meanings of things, or if you feel you aren't qualified to opine on matters involving the expression of ideas, maybe there is some other blog you might like better.

But Trump's statement wasn't sarcasm. It may have been hyperbole, but it certainly wasn't sarcasm. You and Trump apparently don't know what sarcasm is.

LO FUCKING L! You refuse to hear his meaning because it reflects badly on the bungling authors of the current mess in the Middle East and North Africa and the refugee crisis and summer of terror in Europe, that would be Hillary and Barack, but you claim to be an expert on what he meant to say.

Fuck Bill Clinton and the hag he rode in on. You'll have to excuse me, I'm watching Flight 93 at the moment. I wish our presidential candidates, and entire political class, were worthy of the people on that plane. I wish we all were. Never forget.

What's odd here is that, when called on it, Trump tried to wiggle out by calling it sarcasm, that is, a biting joke--which it wasn't, and it would be worse if he intended it that way. Instead, he could have used it as an opening to provide a detailed, knowledgeable, irrefutable explanation of how the fecklessness of Obama/Hillary's Middle East foreign policy led directly and/or indirectly to the creation and success of ISIS. It could have/would have been politically devastating.

The odd part is that the opening played right into Trump's strongest attribute: his ability to provide long, detailed, deeply insightful, profound explanations of world affairs (and any other political or economic matter) drawing on history, foreign policy analysis, game theory, and various other forms of esoteric statecraft.

Why he didn't use this opportunity to play to his own strength and explain it in detail is a total mystery. He's normally so good--and so articulate--at explaining deep policy matters.

BN wrote:"Instead, he could have used it as an opening to provide a detailed, knowledgeable, irrefutable explanation of how the fecklessness of Obama/Hillary's Middle East foreign policy led directly and/or indirectly to the creation and success of ISIS. It could have/would have been politically devastating."Oh, anyone can do that, BN. It would have been a waste of the Trumpster's talent.

I agree with Terry here. Most people don't have the attention span to appreciate the nuances of why Obama and Crooked Hillary were responsible for ISIS and the refugee situation today in the Levant. Trump came up with a somewhat brief, catchy way to make this point. This is much better for him than boring everyone with the details.

The response is faux outrage, trying to kill the message by attacking it obliquely. Most everyone of any intelligent fence understood what he meant - that their policies were some of the major factors in the rise of ISIS. Hard to refute, so his critics first played dumb, and now are trying to put the emphasis on it not being quite sarcasm, but maybe a bit of hyperbole, and Trump then lied by calling it sarcasm. Which is plain silly - as I pointed out, most everyone of any intelligence knew precisely what he meant. They just didn't like him saying it, because it is most likely true, and it hurts Crooked Hillary's chance to return to the White House. (In her defense, while I think that she probably led in Lybia and Egypt, I think it was mostly Obama who wanted our troops out of Iraq so badly, creating the vacuum that allowed ISIS to flourish).

There is no reasonable reason to assume that Clinton's statement was "sarcastic" or they we should view it that way. The very idea is laughable on its face. Does the NYT not know what being sarcastic means?